LAURENCE SINGS A HYMN Laurence turned and beheld his brother.

In another instant the two young men had clinched and were rolling on the ground, wrestling and striking according to their ability.

Sholto might easily have had the best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a frame of body more lithe and supple.

Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a superfluous ounce of flesh on him anywhere.
In a minute the brothers had become the centre of a riotous, laughing throng of varlets--archers seeking their corps, and young squires sent by their lords to find out the exact positions allotted to each contingent by the provost of the camp.

For as the wappenshaw was to be of three days' duration in all its nobler parts, a wilderness of tents had already begun to arise under the scattered white thorns of the great Boreland Croft which stretched up from the river.
These laughed and jested after their kind, encouraging the youths to fight it out, and naming Laurence the brock or badger from his stoutness, and the slim Sholto the whitterick or, as one might say, weasel.
"At him, Whitterick--grip him! Grip him! Now you have him at the pinch! Well pulled, Brock! 'Tis a certainty for Brock--good Brock! Well done--well done! Ah, would you?
Hands off that dagger! Let fisticuffs settle it! The Whitterick hath it--the Whitterick!" And thus ran the comment.